Missing in Blue Mesa Page 9

  “Sure,” she said. “I’d love to meet her.”

  The first thing Ethan noted when he pulled into the driveway at his mother’s house was that the yard had been mowed and trimmed. Nancy Reynolds came out onto the front stoop as Ethan and Michelle stepped out of the car. “Mom, this is Michelle Munson.” He made the introduction as his mom walked out to meet them. “Michelle, this is my mom, Nancy.”

  “You’re that poor mother whose little boy is missing, aren’t you?” His mom took Michelle’s hand in both of hers, her face creased with concern. “I saw the reports on the news. I’ve been praying they find him.”

  “Thank you,” Michelle said. “Your son has been a big help to me.”

  Nancy nodded. “He is a big help to me, too.”

  “Mom, who did the yard?” Ethan asked.

  “Althea Douglas gave me the name of the people she uses and they came out this afternoon.” She surveyed the yard. “I think they did a pretty good job. They’ll come every week now.”

  “Mom, I told you I would take care of it.”

  “You have plenty to do without worrying about my yard.” She pulled Michelle toward the house. “Come on. I’ve got a surprise to show you.”

  Ethan followed the two women. His mom pressed the button to open the garage door and it slowly rose to reveal a shiny blue sedan with dealer tags. “It’s the first brand-new car I’ve ever owned,” she said, excitement making her voice sound high and girlish. She turned to Michelle. “Ethan’s father always bought used cars. Which is very practical, I’m sure. But I always wanted something new.” She leaned over and patted the fender of the car, an Accord.

  Ethan fought a storm of emotions, from worry to anger. “Mom, why didn’t you say something to me?” he asked. “I would have gone with you.”

  “I wanted to do this for myself,” she said. “It was important to me to do it on my own.”

  “I hope they didn’t take advantage of you,” he said. His inexperienced mother would have been a target for an unscrupulous salesman.

  “I didn’t accept the first price he quoted,” she said. “I made him come down, and I did my research online so I knew what was fair.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Michelle said. “And I love the color.”

  “Let me take you for a drive,” his mom said. “She rides like a dream. Just let me get my purse.” Before Ethan could protest, she ran back into the house.

  “I can’t believe she just went out and bought a new car,” Ethan said, staring after her. “What was she thinking?”

  “She always wanted a new car,” Michelle said. “Why shouldn’t she have it?”

  Ethan didn’t have an answer to this question. It wasn’t the new car he minded, so much as his mother’s impulsive—and as far as he was concerned, uncharacteristic—behavior. Maybe this was the first sign of early dementia. Today she was buying a new car—tomorrow she might donate her savings to a fake charity.

  She emerged from the house, holding up the key fob. “I don’t even need an old-fashioned key,” she said. “Can you believe it?” She climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “You sit up front with your mom,” Michelle said as she opened the back door.

  Ethan slid into the front passenger seat. “Leather seats,” Michelle said. She ran an appreciative hand over the upholstery. “Nice.”

  “Kenny—that was my husband, Ethan’s father—didn’t like leather seats. Impractical, he called them.”

  “But you didn’t want practical,” Michelle said. “You wanted good-looking. Luxurious, even.”

  “Exactly!” His mom beamed and backed the car out of the garage. “And right now I want to treat the two of you to dinner,” she said.

  “That’s okay, Mom,” Ethan said. “You don’t have—”

  “All three of us have to eat,” his mom said. “So hush, and let me buy it for you.” She raised her voice to be better heard in the back seat. “Ethan never wants me to spend money. I keep telling him that his father left me well provided for, but he doesn’t believe it.”

  “You have to be careful, Mom,” he said. “Dad took care of all the finances, so you haven’t had a lot of experience with all that.”

  “Believe it or not, I still know how to add and subtract,” she said. “And I know how to handle money. You don’t have to worry about me winding up penniless on your doorstep.”

  “It’s really sweet of you to offer to buy dinner,” Michelle said. “But going to a restaurant where the press might see us isn’t a good idea.”

  “Then I know the perfect place,” his mom said. “Trust me, the press will never find you there.”

  Which was how the three of them ended up at Dixie’s Drive-in. The old-fashioned drive-in on the outskirts of town boasted killer onion rings, real ice cream shakes and fresh-ground burgers on toasted buns. “We used to come here almost every Saturday night when Ethan was young,” his mom said after they had placed their orders.

  “This was always where Dad took me when he wanted to have a serious talk,” Ethan said. “We’d order burgers and rings and after the food came Dad would make whatever announcement he wanted me to hear and we would eat. I think he liked that the food kept us from having to say too much more once he was done with his speech.”

  “What kind of announcements?” Michelle asked.

  “This is where he told me about sex when I was eleven years old.” Ethan chuckled, remembering. “He had a whole speech about the physical realities of sex and he recited it in a monotone, and very fast. His face was as red as the bottles of ketchup. I let him get through the whole thing before I told him my best friend, Mark Greeley, had already told me everything and that I had already French-kissed Carol Sue Beemer behind her father’s barn when I went over to help harvest corn.”

  “Shame on you,” his mom said. “Your poor father agonized over having ‘the talk’ with you for weeks. I finally told him he had to get it over with before he drove me crazy.”

  Ethan settled back in his seat. The car smelled so new—not like any vehicle the family had ever owned. “We talked about other things, too,” he said. “About grades and sports, where I wanted to go to college, what I wanted to do for a living.”

  “He was always so proud of you,” his mother said. “‘My son, the FBI agent,’ he would say.”

  “He always told me he hoped I found a woman like you,” Ethan said.

  His mom dabbed at her eyes. “For goodness’ sake, I hope you find a woman better than me.” She gave a watery smile. “Someone who knows how to balance her own checkbook and isn’t terrified of spiders.”

  “Fearlessness is overrated,” Michelle said. “Ethan likes taking care of people, so he needs a woman who needs to be looked after.”

  “We all need looking after sometimes, don’t we?” his mom said. “I think sometimes the toughest people need that most of all.”

  * * *

  MICHELLE ACHED FOR her son. She dreamed she was standing by that fire in the wilderness, walking through the ashes, opening the blackened trunk. Hunter, her beautiful boy, smiled up for her. But when she bent to lift him up, she discovered it was only a doll that looked like Hunter—plastic and staring and not her boy at all.

  She woke crying, Ethan holding her tightly against him. She pressed her face into his chest, breathing in the clean cotton scent of the T-shirt he wore, and the more elemental fragrance of his skin, warm and male, comforting and exciting even in the midst of her grief.

  She clung to him, yet hated that she did so. You couldn’t hold on to people. If you tried, you only ended up hurt. If you counted on others for help, you’d only end up weaker than ever. Better to fight your own battles. Better to not need anyone else.

  But when his arms tightened around her and he murmured soothing words in her ear, she could only hold on more. She had always been strong, but this time she wasn’t str
ong enough to let go.

  Last night, after dinner with his mom and the drive back to the duplex, fatigue had dragged at her. She didn’t ask Ethan to stay with her, but when he did, she had been beyond relieved. She didn’t think she would have slept at all if she had had to spend the night alone.

  After a while she was able to pull herself together and ease out of his arms. “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Almost seven,” he said. “I have to be at work at eight. Do you want to grab a shower while I fix breakfast?”

  She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “A shower would be good. But I don’t feel like eating.”

  “I don’t imagine you do, but it will probably be a long day.” He stood and began pulling on clothes. “You need to eat something.”

  She shuffled into the shower, trying to decide how she felt about this—about him taking care of her—fixing breakfast and telling her to eat. She was a grown woman. She didn’t need someone telling her what to do.

  She still couldn’t believe she had said that last night, about Ethan needing someone to look after. It was probably true, but was that really something you should say to a man’s mother? All she had really meant to do was to subtly point out that she was not the woman for Ethan—just in case his mom started getting ideas.

  Not that she didn’t like Ethan—she was crazy about him. He was probably the best man she had ever met. But she had worked hard for many years to be someone who could always look after herself, and Ethan was never going to really appreciate that.

  She couldn’t imagine being like his mother—having to rely on other people for everything from mowing the lawn to handling her checkbook. Props to her for getting out there and learning new things, but it sounded as if she still had a ways to go. It had been a long time since Michelle had had a checking account, but she still knew how to take care of one. She knew how to change a tire and pick a lock and how to work her way through the paperwork maze of social services. She knew what she had to do to take care of herself and Hunter.

  Hunter. Maybe they would find him today. Surely they would. Last night Ethan had explained they were bringing in a helicopter to search the area for any signs of the little boy. And volunteers from town were going to do a grid search of the wilderness around the camp. There was still the possibility that he had wandered off on his own and was lost somewhere in all that empty land. She shuddered at the thought. But children that young could survive amazing things, couldn’t they? She had read stories like that—toddlers wandering lost for days, drinking ditch water and eating wild berries, eventually found safe and sound. That could happen for Hunter, too.

  But her gut told her her son hadn’t wandered off on his own. Someone had taken him—Daniel Metwater or someone Metwater controlled.

  Ethan had coffee and scrambled eggs and toast waiting in the kitchen. “Should I go with the volunteers to search this morning?” she asked as he set a plate in front of her.

  “You can, though it might be better if you stay at headquarters, in case we get any news.” He took the seat across from her and began slathering strawberry jam on a piece of toast. “We’ve got another group of volunteers that will be putting up fliers all over the area. Someone might remember seeing Hunter.”

  “Why are people doing this?” she asked. “All these volunteers, I mean? They don’t even know me.”

  “People care,” he said. “Especially when a child is involved. They want to do what they can to help.”

  A knock on the door startled them. Ethan set down his toast and rose, frowning. He left the room and she heard the door open and muffled voices. A moment later Ethan returned. “It’s a reporter from the Montrose Daily Press,” he said. “He wants to speak to you.”

  Her stomach knotted. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “You don’t have to,” Ethan said. “I’ll send him away.”

  When he left the room again, she followed, trying to stay out of sight behind him. “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Ethan said.

  “Just a few words and a picture,” the reporter said. “It will help the volunteers to see who they’re helping.”

  The thought of all those people helping her when she didn’t even know them nagged at her. She stepped forward. “All right. But just a few words.”

  “Great.” The reporter, a stocky young man with thinning blond hair, beckoned her forward. “Step out here where the light is better.”

  She moved onto the front steps of the duplex, and was startled to see half a dozen reporters congregating there. Camera flashes momentarily blinded her and for a moment she was sixteen again, standing in front of her foster parents’ home, surrounded by an angry crowd who thought she had killed a little girl.

  Only Ethan’s hand pressed against her lower back kept her from fleeing back inside. She cleared her throat. “I want to thank everyone for their help,” she said.

  “Tell us about your son,” the reporter prompted.

  “Hunter...” Her voice broke and she struggled to control it. She didn’t want to break down, though that was probably what some of them wanted. People liked drama. “Hunter is a good little boy,” she said. “Always cheerful and loving. He’s fearless, too. He loves meeting new people. If you find him—when you find him—you’ll see.”

  “Do you think your son’s disappearance has any connection to the disappearance of Madeline Perry, a child who was also under your care ten years ago?”

  Her shock over the question must have shown on her face. The cameras flashed again, and she put up a hand to protect her eyes. Ethan moved up beside her, his hand still at her back. “Before you go making accusations, you’d better get your facts straight,” he said, his voice full of anger. “Madeline Perry was kidnapped by her mother, who had lost a custody dispute with the child’s father. Ms. Munson had nothing to do with the disappearance.”

  “That’s not what my source said,” the reporter said.

  “Who is your source?” Ethan asked.

  The reporter smirked. “You know I can’t reveal that.”

  “Your source is wrong.”

  He ushered her inside and closed the door and locked it. She leaned against the wall, shaken. “Daniel Metwater fed the reporter that information,” she said. “He’s doing everything he can to get at me.”

  He led her back into the kitchen and sat her at the table, then refilled both their coffee cups. “Why is Metwater after you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because of his brother—because of what I know about David.”

  “Were they so close he would hurt you to keep you quiet?”

  “They were twins. People say twins have a special bond.”

  “Or maybe he was involved somehow in David’s crimes and he doesn’t want that to come out.” Since their first conversation along these lines he had tried to figure out some connection between the two brothers that would lead to his harassment of Michelle, but he had come up with nothing.

  “I’m not going to let him beat me.” She pushed away the half-eaten breakfast. “I’m tougher than he thinks.”

  “I’m not going to let him beat you,” he said. “And if he’s responsible for what you and Hunter have suffered so far, I’ll make sure he pays.”

  The fierceness of his words made her throat tighten. She couldn’t believe all cops took their jobs so seriously—there was something very special about Ethan Reynolds.

  Breakfast done, Ethan fended off the reporters who crowded around as they made their way to his cruiser. Michelle half expected to see a similar horde outside Ranger Headquarters, but either the press hadn’t made their way here yet, or the Rangers had warned them off.

  Inside, they found Carmen and Simon examining the contents of the burned trunk, which were spread on tables in the conference room. Everything reeked of smoke and most of the items were unrecognizable, reduced to twisted sha
rds of black.

  “They used diesel fuel as an accelerant,” Simon said. “We found some tire tracks in the area, but nothing we can link to a specific vehicle.”

  Michelle stopped in front of what was left of her photo album. She started to reach for it, then stopped and looked at Ethan. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  She slid the blackened book toward her and gingerly lifted the cover. Relief flooded her when she saw the first page. “The edges are a little scorched, but I think most of the pictures are okay.” She flipped through the pages, stopping on her high school graduation photo. She looked so impossibly young at first glance, though anyone who studied her eyes might see some of all she had been through by that age.

  “Is that you?” Ethan asked.

  She nodded. “I like the picture, so I kept it.”

  She turned the page to a group of snapshots of Hunter—as a newborn in the hospital, then slightly older, in the bath, smiling his wonderful smile. She blinked back tears and closed the book. “I can’t accept that he just vanished,” she said.

  Ethan pulled another book from farther down the table. “Are these the articles you saved about David Metwater?” he asked.

  She forced her attention to the scrapbook in front of him. “Yes. I started collecting them after Cass’s death.” The scrapbook hadn’t fared as well as the photo album in the fire—many of the pages were scorched to the point where they were unreadable.

  “We can probably find most of this stuff online.” Simon joined them. “If we reassemble the collection, maybe we can pinpoint something in there Metwater is worried about.”

  “If you have a computer I could use, I could start looking,” she said. That would give her something to do, and something to focus on while she waited on word from the searchers.

  “You can use my laptop,” Carmen said. “We’ll set you up with a desk. Send anything interesting you find to the printer.”